This is an eco-political blog written for the sole purpose of participating in the conversation. It is a place to talk about most politics with a concentration on sustainability news and issues, state and local politics and progressive issues.

Friday, December 25, 2009

It is the holiday season and I thought that Copenhagen would be a huge present to the world's ecological and green-citizens. The gift instead ended up being the equivalent of socks or $5 from your grandmother; you know a lot of effort was put into it and you can appreciate it, but it is still a bit of a disappointment, even if you were kind of expecting the socks.

The high hopes for a binding and effective agreement coming out of this meeting were short lived as a result of the walkouts, quick infighting and quickly dissolving accords. Eventually it looked as if absolutely nothing would come out of the conference.

A colleague of mine and I were discussing it and she mentioned the fact that she was at the conference, I mentioned my jealousy at her being there, "Don't be," she told me, "it was super stressful and cold." For some reason that sums it for me. The result of the conference ended up being a three page "nothing agreement" that included nothing of substance. Yet the UN reps were more than ready to be struck with awe by it;

I am rather saddened by the fact that certain countries are upset by monitoring and transparency aspects, esp. when this new tracking technology was unveiled at Copenhagen. This rainforest tracking technology would be lent out to countries and governments and could eventually be the ecological equivalent of the SETI@home program. Having this information easily available would allow for an overall tracking system that would allow for easier goal setting and behavior modification.

There are some amazing quotes that analyze the Summit and the Accords that I would just like to show here. From Margaret Swink of Grist;

It makes sense that China who has a history steeped in isolationism and being the victim of colonization would be sensitive to the concept of foreign oversight. As a Wall Street Journal Article states;

What world leaders seem to forget is that the ramifications of the failures at Copenhagen affect not just politics and progress on a national scale, but even states and municipalities as well. California itself had a massive delegation at Copenhagen during the "trainwreck period" and many commented on the fears regarding the future of the climate-progressive state;

Copenhagen made me wonder if it would be more effective to take government entities slightly out of the picture and put the emphasis on NGOs. With NGOs you have more mulit-national flexibility and the ability to break down goals regionally instead of socio-politically. Perhaps that will be the more effective method. Whatever the solution is, it should come a little bit sooner than later based on the fact that apparently the "Earth (is) on track for (an) epic die-off" according to scientists.

So what does this leave us with? A ton of money spent, no real binding agreement, the finger of blame pointed everywhere, a bunch of beaten up protesters, and to wait for next year’s December meeting of the UNFCCC in Mexico City.

I will leave you with a sweet "Dr. Suess"esk version of the proceedings please watching/listen to this amazing video;

He goes on to explain, rather well, the connection between Climate Change and conflict. As the Climate changes and resources such as potable water and livable spaces become scarcer conflicts rise. Kumi also goes on to express further disappointment at the lack of discussing Copenhagen and the roll America is to take there.

So lets talk Copenhagen, first, Climate Debt.

Climate Debt is the concept that Developed Nations (First World) owe a first world and developed countries "owe the world" for the pollutions created during their development and that these debts should be used to assist the development of third world nations.

Later on the show, Amy Goodman, brings shows Todd Stern who is the Climate Change Envoy, this is what he had to say about it.

TODD STERN: I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like. I mean, let’s just be mindful of the fact that for most of the 200 years that—since the Industrial Revolution, people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions caused a greenhouse effect. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. So I think that’s the wrong way to look at this. We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting the emissions in the atmosphere up there that are—you know, that are there now. But the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just—I categorically reject that.

I understand the argument that the sins of the father do not always or should not always fall to the son, but we must recognize that we are one world. And if we can buffer the effects of National Development then livelihood of all humans will be so much the better. We need to get past the concept of isolationist because the Climate is affected by global

By bolstering developing nations in a safe way, we prevent a horrible situation in the future. Perhaps it is a question of marketing; if the funds that were being collected for investment in green growth in developing nations was called "investing in the safe future of our climate"

would it be more attractive than "reparations" perhaps it would be more palatable.

Also if there was a something with a little more bite and openness to it. If we knew EXACTLY how this money would be spent and what would happen if it wasn't, then I would take it more seriously.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

So, last night (this morning) at approximately 3 am I gave a call to action to call your legislators regarding the Recycling Funds and SB 402 and today I took my own advice and called Assemblymember Jim Beall's Office. I had a great conversation with a leg. aide who was in charge of environmental issues regarding my concerns and requested support of a reintroduction or a gut and amend action.

We began to talk a little bit about our disappointment with the veto letter and he joked; "At least there was no hidden profanity in it." I laughed.

For those who don't know, back in October a controversial veto letter to Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco had an acrostic spelling out a four lettered profanity starting with the letter F followed by "you." In other words, reading down the page, the first letter of each line read out "F--- you." There were articles about it and speculation on the reasons (perhaps as retaliation for a heckling the Gov. at an event and screaming out "kiss my gay ass") but the more hilarious rip on the governor comes from "news"/talkshow host Steven Colbert in his "Alpha Dog of the Week" segment.

As if the "girlie man" comments or the fact that he has created debacle after debacle weren't enough, this action furthers the belief that California Politics is a joke. Way to gov Gov'nator. Way to go.

A disturbing trend throughout California is emerging, recycling centers will shut down due to the state of California cutting funding to more than 2,400 recycling centers. Currently 90 centers have closed statewide, but more are expected to close causing job loss in an important sector that is growing in other aspects; the green economy. Workers at these centers, administrators and processors will begin to lose jobs at a higher rate as more centers shut down. The recycling program that was once the pride of California since its introduction in 1986 is bankrupt due to inefficient handling of the program's funds and other factors.

Two major things occurred to cause this bankruptcy; the State saw that the program was running a surplus and continuously borrowed against it, and, when the program was starting to lose large amounts of money through this borrow and spend practice the program began to succeed in its original purpose.

The Beverage Container Recycling Fund (BCRF) has a revenue of $1.2 billion per year from the small deposit that is charged for beverage containers and are meant to be reimbursed to the consumer when the container is recycled. The original goal of the program was to hypothetically have all the deposits paid back to the consumer and have a (near) 100% recycling rate of these containers. There is a very informative page on this put up by Californian's Against Waste(CAW) for more background information.

California’s bottle bill program, in place since 1986, charges consumers a small deposit for beverage containers, which is reimbursed to them when they recycle. Each year, around $1.2 billion in deposits pass through the Beverage Container Fund. The fund was designed to cycle deposits from manufacturers to consumers to recyclers, theoretically leaving it with a zero balance.

The article goes on to explain that since the recycling rate remained at “50% for decades”(though this figure may not be accurate) the fund generated a huge surplus. This deposit became a fee of inconvenience and generated huge money for the state. The excess money went, through various venues, towards subsidizing the industry and creating a type of dependency on the funds for administrative and operating aspects.

In the study year of 1999, California’s unique redemption system achieved a redemption rate of 69percent and targeted 79 percent of container types, for an overall recovery rate of 54.5 (373 containers per capita). California’s program was greatly expanded in 2000 and the percentage of containers redeemed has initially declined. It should be watched closely as it continues to adjust to this expansion.

The report went on to show that California was recycling beverage containers at dramatically higher volumes than in states without deposit laws. It even called California's system unique and the most cost-effective in the nation. The word must have reached the legislature because they saw this fund as a piggy bank to borrow from. The state legislature borrowed around $415 million from the BCRF from 2003-2009.

[The $415 million was] all loans in Budget Acts from the Bottle Bill fund (BCRF) to the General Fund. The general fund pays for everything that is not a special fund program, so schools, prisons, etc. The loans carry the condition that they be paid back with interest, and that they do not interfere with the program, but both aren’t really enforceable because the legislature can (and has) postpone repayment, and a $99 million loan was made in the most recent budget act despite the not-so-secret fact that the fund was in trouble.

After the state continued to borrow against this program, they were warned of the danger to the funds. On June 23, 2009, the Department of Conservation advised that an 85% reduction in costs would be necessary to keep the program going and to maintain the program's functions. The legislature, instead of protecting this fund, borrowed $99 million to help cushion the State's depleting General Fund.

I would love to see a graph or graphic of the United States Recycling Statistics and patterns by date and regionality. If I had the data and programing capabilities, I would do it myself but it would be a great reference to have available, but enough of the tangent.

The facts that the State was siphoning money from the fund and that more than 85 percent of beverage containers were recycled in the first six months of 2009 meant that the BCRF had less money, about 15% of the actual fund to pay for all of the programs and the State decided to cut funding to centers.

The number of supermarket parking-lot recyclers has grown gradually in recent years to about 2,100. But two of the largest operators, Tomra Pacific and NexCycle, announced the shutdown of about 90 centers recently, laying off more than 100 workers.

Scott Dosick, spokesman for the California Association of Local Conservation Corps, said the state's 12 programs typically employ 4,000 youths, but cutbacks this year have eliminated about 500 of those jobs.

This is a pressing time in America when jobs are few and investment in the green economy is what many, including myself, believe can save our Nation's future. Now is not the time to be cutting jobs from this field, now is the time to invest in it. I call upon the Legislature to not only rectify this situation but increase investment in the system. I do not believe, as some say, that this proves a "systemic flaw in the state's recycling strategy” I say that the actual legislative process and practices are what caused the bankruptcy of the fund and it is those practices that need to be addressed.

Balances the Bottle Bill Fund by ending program exemptions and decreasing the 10 cent CRV threshold to 20 ounces from 24 ounces, ending the exemption given to non-bottle-and-can beverage containers, and other measures.

This bill was unfortunately vetoed by the Governor for a long list of “reasons” which CAW responded to quite brilliantly. All in all I am highly disappointed in California for allowing this situation to occur. I had hoped we were more intelligent in our money management but apparently we are not and now one of our best programs is suffering from it, as are those who depend on it to survive.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

It was great to see the recent episode of the Daily Show talk about ClimateGate; his analysis did touch upon the statistical issues, though I am still not entirely sure that they were deliberately altering data for malicious reasons I do agree with this;

But that's the point, if you care about an issue, and want to make it your life's work, don't cut corners. It's disheartening for people inclined towards the scientific method and it's catnip to these guys who are going to end up celebrating tonight, drunk, roaming the Arctic Circle trying to scullf*ck polar bears. Which are quickly disappearing because of rising oceans. Caused now, apparently, by God's tears.

I would have liked to see Tom Friedman talk a little less about Afghanistan and use the pulpit to address the data verses display issue which has spurred this controversy but glad to see it on there in the first place.

If you get a minute, take a look at the comments on this YouTube video for an interesting look at a demographic's view on the topic.